Kris Davis (1980), raised in the Canadian city of Calgary, started playing the piano when she was just out of kindergarten. Nowadays, she has 19 albums to her name as (co-)leader. She was named Rising Star Pianist in 2017 as well as Rising Star Artist in 2018 by Downbeat magazine. When Davis got into her high school jazz band, a whole new world opened up for her. It was her first introduction to improvisation, which created a love that only grew over the years. For her latest album, 2019’s Diatom Ribbons, Davis let herself be inspired by shapes of nature, mostly those of algae (diatoms), but also by musical innovators such as Cecil Taylor, John Cage, and Olivier Messiaen.
